RESTAURANTS

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

The December birthstone is blue topaz. It’s also turquoise – which seems very summery, and hard to find tanzanite which the US declared a birthstone for December in 2002.

Beautifully designed pieces of blue topaz jewellery are difficult to come across, so if you want to give something special that says more than Christmas you may have a problem finding it unless you know where to look.

There are of course thousands of earrings, pendants and rings in the bigger stores, but to my mind if you want to give something unique you’d be better looking at these websites, even if the choice isn’t huge. After all who wants something that’s been made in the thousands?
Natural blue topaz is extremely rare, typically it is heat treated to turn it the required shade of blue. It sparkles and stands out beautifully and looks wonderful surrounded by diamonds or mixed with gold or silver, both in modern and traditional settings. Prices run from the reasonable - for a simple piece of December birthstone jewellery - and up into the thousands. So set your budget and think of Christmas…….
Designers Kiki McDonough at Astley Clarke, Larkspur and Hawk and Ippolita at Net-a-Porter.com and Lilia Nash all create very different pieces and at different price ranges. Lilia Nash also will adapt any of her designs to suit your birthstone month, and the reasonably priced birthstone necklace above can be set with a single stone or up to five stones to represent other family members.